Saturday, October 06, 2007

Knackered 10 d Red Devils 7

Our star striker Brett returned from his extended holiday in Bali, sporting an impressive scar. He had the traditional Bali motorbike accident, and screwed up his ankle for three months.

We had the same lazy referee as last week. He gave about three free kicks for the whole game. Once you realise your game is essentially unsupervised, you can incorporate that into your playing style, but this suits some people more than others.

Red Devils tried a bit of rough stuff. It really gets my goat when you are simply marking someone closely, and they think a fair response to that is a whack in the chops.

They scored first, but we hit back with two beautifully finished goals from Mel. I am coming down with something viral, I felt very heavy in the legs, and I made a a lot of mistakes. We got away to a handy lead of about 6-2 but they pegged us back to about 6-5 at halftime. Again their passing wasn't so hot, but our goalkeeping was average. On the other hand their keeper is the best we have played against. The best teamwork I saw from them was when I was tracking a guy with the ball about to take a shot, and the biggest bloke on their team just stepped into my path as the other guy got a free shot into the corner. The ref plucked a bit of fluff from his navel and it was halftime.

The second half was quite tight but we stayed in front with goals when it mattered. I gave away a penalty when goalkeeping, by throwing the ball over halfway on the full, trying to find Brett. I used to do this all the time, but I had cured myself of it while Brett was away. He had been on court about five minutes and I did it again. Fortunately I saved the penalty (taken by the goose who hit me in the jaw).

We are on top of the ladder now with a percentage of 177. Cam is off to England for 3 weeks after the next match, and I will miss one of our next 3 as well, but we have got the depth to cover now. We are on a 6 match winning streak, with 4 matches left before the finals.